Fast-Charging, Noncombustible Batteries

AUSTIN, Texas — A team of engineers led by 94-year-old John Goodenough, professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin and co-inventor of the lithium-ion battery, has developed the first all-solid-state battery cells that could lead to safer, faster-charging, longer-lasting rechargeable batteries for handheld mobile devices, electric cars and stationary energy storage.

The University of Texas at Austin Credits: https://news.utexas.edu

Goodenough’s latest breakthrough, completed with Cockrell School senior research fellow Maria Helena Braga, is a low-cost all-solid-state battery that is noncombustible and has a long cycle life (battery life) with a high volumetric energy density and fast rates of charge and discharge.

“Cost, safety, energy density, rates of charge and discharge and cycle life are critical for battery-driven cars to be more widely adopted.

The researchers demonstrated that their new battery cells have at least three times as much energy density as today’s lithium-ion batteries.

The use of an alkali-metal anode (lithium, sodium or potassium) — which isn’t possible with conventional batteries — increases the energy density of a cathode and delivers a long cycle life.

Braga said that Goodenough brought an understanding of the composition and properties of the solid-glass electrolytes that resulted in a new version of the electrolytes that is now patented through the UT Austin Office of Technology Commercialization.

The engineers’ glass electrolytes allow them to plate and strip alkali metals on both the cathode and the anode side without dendrites, which simplifies battery cell fabrication.

Technologies present high risk in 2017

(Summary from: www.zdnet.com: Which technologies present the most risk in 2017?)

A lot of exciting new technologies are emerging or maturing that will likely play an increasingly important role in our lives and help transform businesses and industries in the coming months and years.

ZDNet

But many of these present potential risks from an information security and safety standpoint.

“Emerging technologies may have differing cyber security concerns than traditional IT systems, especially if they have components that impact the physical world, such as autonomous vehicles and smart medical devices,” said Dan Klinedinst, senior vulnerability analyst in the CERT Division of the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

Here are the technologies that CERT, a group that researches a variety of issues with cyber security implications, will be keeping a close watch on this year:

Microsoft Testing Underwater Data Centers

Photo Credits: Microsoft Research

Companies like Microsoft and Google are searching for better solutions for the geometrical increase in the volume of data transmissions demanded by their consumers. They are using more hardwares, and more energy to maintain their services. The by-product of it is the excessive heat to be removed.

Microsoft, now tries to solve that unwanted heat created by the data centers with a different strategy. Instead of using a cooling system running with liquid nitrogene, they are dipping their data centers into the ocean in steel tubes.

They are also planning to produce the required energy by the data centers using some off-shore power generators.

They hope that it will help somewhat for the global warming problems.

Maybe there are some cool solutions for our future under the depths of the oceans. Who knows?

Super-fast 5G Internet by Solar Powered Drones

In an article by BEC Crew in ScienceAlert.com it is said that Google is working on a secret project codenamed Skybender.

In the project a data transmission 40 times faster than the fastest wireless services is aimed.

The new data transmission will be made in a new spectrum with millimetric waves which covers a frequency range from 30 GHz to 300GHz.

Test are being maintained already in New Mexico.

“According to Engadget, Google has permission from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to continue testing their drones in US airspace till July this year, at which point we’ll probably hear more about the success or failure of Skybender. Regardless of what happens though, we get the feeling that those millimetre waves aren’t going to be left vacant for much longer.”

Quantum computer runs 100 millon times faster

Photo credits: en.wikipedia.org

Google and NASA announces the quantum computer developed by their teams runs 100 million times faster than a normal binary computer with a single processor. The code name of the quantum computer is D-WAVE 2X.

A normal computer uses binary technology using on and off states of bits. A gate is either open or closed in binary systems. But in quantum computers, qubits are used. A qubit can have the opposite states zero and one simultaneously.

“To give you an idea of its processing capacity, what the D-WAVE 2X takes one second to process, a common PC would take 10,000 years.” say Lara Lopes from interestingengineering.com. (Actually 100 million seconds does not make 10 thousand years. It is roughly 100000000/86400/365 = 3.17 years. I think there is a miscalculation.)

Google plans to use quantum computers in its internet services.

NASA will use them where heavy calculations are required such as orbital calculations and atmospheric mappings for the climate change.